Business Statistics: Exam 1 Practice Questions

Fall 2026

State the data type, timing and level that best characterize the following data sets:

a. A list of what kind of soda (Coke Pepsi, etc.) people prefer as indicated by a survey.

Qualitative, Cross-sectional, Nominal

State the data type, timing and level that best characterize the following data sets:

b. A record of the average yearly cost of gasoline in the US for the last 35 years

Quantitative, Time Series, Ratio

State the data type, timing and level that best characterize the following data sets:

c. Class Standing (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.) (For the purpose of deciding priority on signing up for a specific class based on who is closest to graduation

Qualitative, Cross-Sectional, Ordinal

A food inspector wants to sample vegetables from a produce store to determine their quality. There are six different displays of vegetables that need to be tested, and each display has a unique vegetable. State the sampling technique used in each scenario described below.

a. Choosing five vegetables sitting on top of each display.

Convenience Sampling

A food inspector wants to sample vegetables from a produce store to determine their quality. There are six different displays of vegetables that need to be tested, and each display has a unique vegetable. State the sampling technique used in each scenario described below

b. Choosing five vegetables at random from each display.

Stratified Random Sampling (Better, not based on convenience and avoids bias, in this case fresher veggies on top of display being overrepresented)

A survey is to be distributed to students living in dorm rooms at Villanova, which are spread across a number of buildings. The survey concerns the quality of the dorm rooms. State the sampling technique used in each scenario described below.

a. Three buildings are first randomly selected. Next, ten rooms in each building are randomly selected. The survey is then delivered to all residents in each randomly chosen room.

Multistage Sampling

A survey is to be distributed to students living in dorm rooms at Villanova, which are spread across a number of buildings. The survey concerns the quality of the dorm rooms. State the sampling technique used in each scenario described below.

b. Five rooms from each dorm building on campus are randomly selected. The survey is then delivered to all residents in each randomly chosen room

Stratified Random Sampling (Better, sample comes from every building which matters since the purpose of the sample is to examine dorm quality)

Villanova University wishes to know if students would approve of more parking spaces closer to main buildings on campus. What bias/biases must especially be guarded against? Explain.

Undercoverage – Take care not to leave key groups out of the sample (commuters,upperclassmen, etc.)

Voluntary Response – If the survey is voluntary, those with stronger opinions (like those with cars) are more likely to respond, skewing the results.

The following questions form a survey for new Business Statistics students. Identify all of the many flaws of this survey.

What do you think you should learn in Business Statistics?

-Unclear wording (should learn vs. will learn)

-Students probably wouldn’t know how to answer this, not experts on subject

The following questions form a survey for new Business Statistics students. Identify all of the many flaws of this survey.

Have you used Excel? Yes No

-In what capacity? How often?

The following questions form a survey for new Business Statistics students. Identify all of the many flaws of this survey.

Don’t you agree that afternoon courses are better than morning courses?

Completely Agree, Agree, Disagree

-Possible responses aren’t symmetric (missing completely disagree)

-Leading question

-Undercoverage (asking students in an afternoon class already

The following questions form a survey for new Business Statistics students. Identify all of the many flaws of this survey.

How much time do you spend on homework? 0 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 3, More than 3

-Which class? Over what timeframe?

-Units are missing.

-What if the answer is exactly 1, 2, etc. which option to choose? Need to be careful with lower/upper bounds